FROM
PLYMOUTH TO PACIFIC ISLANDS, FROM JAMESTOWN TO JEJU,FROM
FORTS TO LILY PADS: The Continuity of
Military Forts and Bases in the Expansion of the US Empire

What’s
at Stake: Noam Chomsky opens Who Rules the
World? (2006) with this generally accepted statement: “Among states, since the end of World War II
the United States has been by far the first among unequals, and remains so.” In a little over 400 years it has warred its
way through 12 million native Americans until fewer than a million survived by
the twentieth century, and kidnapped, enslaved, and tortured millions of AfrIcans,
and now commands the lands with over 800 military bases, the seas with 10
carrier-based strike forces, and the air with thousands of aircraft, hundreds
of them now bombing seven countries.
The selections of this collection illuminate moments of the first
hundreds of years when the United States of America consolidated during its
westward conquest of the continent, and began its extra-continental westward and
eastward movements toward global control.

“The challenges the Pilgrims faced in making new lives for themselves
still resonate almost 400 years later: the tensions of faith and freedom in
American society, the separation of Church and State, and cultural encounters
resulting from immigration.” [The latter
is a superb euphemism for settlers in other people’s land (the film glances at fierce
Powhatan resistance) that covers up the “American Experience” of their
offspring eventually committing genocide against Native Americans.] --Dick

“As they set sail from London to the distant
shores of America in December 1606, the men and boys onboard the Susan
Constant, the Godspeed, and the Discovery surely expected the best from their
adventure. They’d establish a British settlement, find gold and silver, a
passage to the Orient, and, perhaps, the lost colony of Roanoke. The explorers,
funded by a group of London entrepreneurs called the Virginia Company, could
not have anticipated the fate that actually awaited most of them: drought,
hunger, illness, and death [including Algonquin attacks].” This decimation was arrested when new
settlers arrived in 1609 and a fort was built, but they too suffered death,
illness, hunger. With the help of
Pocahontas, daughter of the Algonquin chief, Powhatan, Capt. John Smith
negotiated a temporary peace. Most of
the new settlers also died, but in 1612 tobacco and in 1619 slaves rescued
them. That neither the British nor the
Algonquins imagined the future awaiting their descendants we might expect,
unless the Natives included a visionary thinker capable of understanding the
long-range implications of their immediate resistance.

Penguin Random House

Independence
Lost: LIVES ON THE EDGE OF THE
AMERICAN REVOLUTION. By KATHLEEN
DUVAL . 2015.

A rising-star historian offers a significant new global
perspective on the Revolutionary War with the story of the conflict as
seen through the eyes of the outsiders of colonial society

Over the last decade, award-winning historian Kathleen DuVal has
revitalized the study of early America’s marginalized voices. Now, in Independence Lost, she recounts an
untold story as rich and significant as that of the Founding Fathers: the history
of the Revolutionary Era as experienced by slaves, American Indians, women, and British
loyalists living on Florida’s Gulf Coast.

While citizens of the thirteen rebelling colonies came to blows
with the British Empire over tariffs and parliamentary representation, the
situation on the rest of the continent was even more fraught. In the Gulf of
Mexico, Spanish forces clashed with Britain’s strained army to carve up the Gulf
Coast, as both sides competed for allegiances with the powerful Chickasaw,
Choctaw, and Creek nations who inhabited the region. Meanwhile, African
American slaves had little control over their own lives, but some individuals
found opportunities to expand their freedoms during the war.

Independence
Lost reveals that individual motives counted as much as the ideals of
liberty and freedom the Founders espoused: Independence had a personal as well
as national meaning, and the choices made by people living outside the colonies
were of critical importance to the war’s outcome. DuVal introduces us to the
Mobile slave Petit Jean, who organized militias to fight the British at sea;
the Chickasaw diplomat Payamataha, who worked to keep his people out of war;
New Orleans merchant Oliver Pollock and his wife, Margaret O’Brien Pollock, who
risked their own wealth to organize funds and garner Spanish support for the
American Revolution; the half-Scottish-Creek leader Alexander McGillivray, who
fought to protect indigenous interests from European imperial encroachment; the
Cajun refugee Amand Broussard, who spent a lifetime in conflict with the
British; and Scottish loyalists James and Isabella Bruce, whose work on behalf
of the British Empire placed them in grave danger. Their lives illuminate the
fateful events that took place along the Gulf of Mexico and, in the process,
changed the history of North America itself.

The book might be entitled Independence Lost: US Continental Expansion
to the Gulf Coast. The settlers who
overthrew the British empire’s restraints on their expansion, when they became
the USA moved not only westward but also southward against more British there,
and Spanish and French settlements and forces, and the many Native
nations—Chickasaw, Creek, Seminoles, and others. And so it goes to the Pacific. From
the Introduction: “Ultimately, the
independence of the United States was built on refusing to share the continent
with empires or with sovereign Indians” (xxiv).
From the Conclusion: “The United
States would be a new kind of empire, one that rejected imperial hierarchies of
reciprocal dependences and instead defined and advanced its own independence
through exclusivist citizenship and military might” (344). –Dick

Crooked Deals and Broken Treaties: How American Indians were
Displaced by White Settlers in the Cuyahoga Valley by John Tully. MONTHLY REVIEW, 2015.

Long before the smokestacks
and factories of industrial Akron rose from Ohio’s Cuyahoga Valley, the region
was a place of tense confrontation. Beginning in the early 19th-century, white
settlers began pushing in from the east, lured by the promise of cheap (or
free) land. They inevitably came into conflict with the current inhabitants,
American Indians who had thrived in the valley for generations or had already
been displaced by settlement along the eastern seaboard. Here, on what was once
the western fringe of the United States, the story of the country’s founding
and development played out in all its ignominy and drama, as American Indians
lost their land, and often their lives, while white settlers expanded a nation.

Historian and novelist John
Tully draws on contemporary accounts and a wealth of studies to produce this
elegiac history of the Cuyahoga Valley. He pays special attention to how
settlers’ notions of private property—and the impulse to own and develop the
land—clashed with more collective social organizations of American Indians. He
also documents the ecological cost of settlement, long before heavy industry
laid waste to the region. Crooked Deals
and Broken Treaties is an impassioned accounting of the cost of “progress,”
and an insistent reminder of the
barbarism and deceit that fueled the rise of the United States.

Praise for Crooked
Deals and Broken Treaties:

Author John Tully masterfully achieves a
well-researched, in-depth case study of one site of United States’ settler colonialism, in the Cuyahoga Valley region,
which gave birth to the settler city of Akron, Ohio. The violence and ethnic
cleansing involved in this early 19th century colonial project previewed the
later ethnic cleansing of Native nations and communities from all the territory
east of the Mississippi River. This work is a model for detailed local studies
of United States settler-colonialism. —Roxanne
Dunbar-Ortiz, author, An Indigenous
Peoples’ History of the United States

John Tully is Honorary Professor, College of
Arts, Victoria University in Melbourne, Australia. He is the author of several
works of history, including Silvertown:
The Lost Story of a Strike that Shook London and Helped Launch the Modern Labor
Movement and The Devil’s Milk: A
Social History of Rubber, as well as three novels.

The first
full account of the government-sanctioned genocide of California Indians under
United States rule

Between 1846 and 1873, California’s Indian population plunged from perhaps
150,000 to 30,000. Benjamin Madley is the first historian to uncover the full
extent of the slaughter, the involvement of state and federal officials, the
taxpayer dollars that supported the violence, indigenous resistance, who did
the killing, and why the killings ended. This deeply researched book is a
comprehensive and chilling history of an American genocide.

Madley describes pre-contact California and precursors to the genocide before
explaining how the Gold Rush stirred vigilante violence against California
Indians. He narrates the rise of a state-sanctioned killing machine and the
broad societal, judicial, and political support for genocide. Many
participated: vigilantes, volunteer state militiamen, U.S. Army soldiers, U.S.
congressmen, California governors, and others. The state and federal
governments spent at least $1,700,000 on campaigns against California Indians.
Besides evaluating government officials’ culpability, Madley considers why the
slaughter constituted genocide and how
other possible genocides within and beyond the Americas might be investigated
using the methods presented in this groundbreaking book.

Benjamin
Madley is assistant professor of history, University of
California, Los Angeles, where he focuses on Native America, the United States,
and genocide in world history. He lives in Los Angeles, CA.

See
rev. by Richard White, “Rather a Hell Than a Home.” The
Nation (Sept. 12-19), 2016. Madley’s An American Genocide is a careful, comprehensive demonstration of
genocide by California’s elected officials and their associates, “funded and
enabled by the federal government.”
Together they created a “killing machine” over several decades. –Dick

Ethnic Cleansing and the
Indian: The Crime That Should Haunt America by Gary Clayton
Anderson

Volume 9 | 2015
Time, Movement, and Space: Genocide Studies and Indigenous Peoples Issue 2 |
Article 14 Book Review: Ethnic Cleansing and the Indian: the Crime that Should
Haunt America Mark Meuwese University of Winnipeg Abstract. This critical
review examines the recent monograph by Gary C. Anderson, Ethnic Cleansing and the Indian. Although Anderson's work gives a comprehensive overview of
how Native Americans were forced from their homelands by European and American
settler-expansion, the author's analysis is weakened by his refusal to consider
that many of the Indigenous groups may have experienced this process as
genocide.

Ethnic cleansing and the
Indian: the crime that should haunt America, ... The two books under review,
Gary Clayton Anderson's Ethnic Cleansing and the Indian ...

US EMPIRE FROM FORTS TO BASES

Base
Nation:
How U.S. Military Bases Abroad Harm America and the World

Metropolitan Books/Henry Holt (August
25, 2015)

From Italy to the Indian Ocean, from Japan to Honduras, the far-reaching
story of the perils of U.S. military bases overseas -- and what these
bases say about America today….

American military bases encircle the globe. More than two decades after
the end of the Cold War and nearly three-quarters of a century after the
last battles of World War II, the United States still stations troops at
some eight hundred locations in foreign lands. These bases are usually
taken for granted or overlooked entirely, a little-noticed part of the
Pentagon’s vast operations. But, in an eye-opening exposé, Base Nation
shows how this global base network causes an array of ills—and undermines
national security in the process.

As David Vine demonstrates, the overseas bases raise geopolitical
tensions and provoke widespread antipathy toward the United States. They
undermine American democratic ideals, pushing the United States into
partnerships with dictators and perpetuating a system of second-class
citizenship in territories such as Guam. The far-flung bases strain the
lives of military families, breed sexual violence, displace indigenous
peoples, and destroy the environment. Their financial cost is staggering:
though the Pentagon tries to underplay the numbers, Vine’s accounting
proves that the true bill approaches $100 billion or more per year. And
by making it easier to wage interventionist wars far from home, overseas
bases have paved the way for disastrous conflicts that have cost
countless lives.

For decades, the need for overseas bases has been a quasi-religious
dictum of U.S. foreign policy. Recently, however, a bipartisan coalition
has finally started questioning this conventional wisdom. With U.S.
forces still in Afghanistan, the Middle East, and beyond, Vine shows why
we must reexamine the tenets of our military strategy, the way we engage
with the world, and the base nation that America has become.

The U.S. occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan have created
a disaster throughout the Middle East, turning millions of people into
homeless refugees desperately seeking a safe haven for their families. <Full statement>

From VFP Weekly E-Newsletter 11-13-15.

Few US citizens would disagree about Iraq (some 5 million
displaced), and I suspect the majority would not about Afghanistan
(invading a nation to capture a man). OMNI needs a refugee task
force and IPAD could start linking displaced Native Americans to their
modern counterparts as refugees. Similarly, modern scholarship is
connecting contemporary US imperialism with the US continental westward
conquest by linking forts and bases (Vine,Base
Nation, see his illuminating map on forts pp. 20-21 and bases
pp. 32ff.).

UA, through International Students/Michael Freeman and
OMNI, has a scholarship for students seeking asylum (fleeing
violence). If you wish to contribute to the scholarship, contact
Mr. Freeman or me.

David
Vine in Base Nation: How U.S. Military
Bases Abroad Harm America and the World (2015).
From Jamestown to Jeju Island the continuity of building “frontier forts”
for US domination.Vine discusses
the history of U.S. military displacement of indigenous groups to create bases.
“During the eighteenth and nineteenth
centuries, bases in North America assisted in the displacement of millions of
Native American peoples” (72). He
exposes the several euphemisms for imperial conquest through bases (“forward
operating sites”), including the “lily pads” of “self-contained outposts
strategically located’ around the world.”
But the “conservative American Enterprise Institute” understands the
goal of the United States has been “’to create a worldwide network of frontier
forts,’ with the U.S. military ‘the ‘global cavalry’ of the twenty-first
century’” (57). --Dick

See
OMNI newsletters on US Westward and Eastward Imperialism (now merged into US
Imperialism: Encircling China and
Russia).

James
Gustave Speth and J. Phillip Thompson III.
“Powered by Radical Roots.” The Nation (May 9/16, 2016). The arrogant European settlers’ “attitude of control
and dominion over ‘soulless’ matter and animals, including ‘inferior’
nonwhites, is an evil embedded deeply in the culture” and “haunts and weakens
our democracy.” MLKJR recognized it and died
opposing it. Indigenous philosophies
teach the intertwining of all life, such as the Iroquois Confederacy 1977
statement, “Basic Call to Consciousness: Address to the Western World.” We must overcome “our tragic legacy of
subordinating nature to humans and humans to other humans.”

What’s at stake: Just a
few days ago I read a report in the newspaper about the 7 million Colombians
displaced. And then about the 3.3
million Iraqis displaced, and the threatened battle for Mosul to displace
possibly “another 1 million people.”
Many of those millions will become refugees fleeing the violence or
consequences of violence. Some of those
might come or want to come to Arkansas.

Catholic Charities Immigration
Services provides low-cost immigration counseling and support to families and
individuals who are eligible for immigration benefits and cannot afford private
assistance. The mission of Catholic Charities Immigration Services is to work
for solidarity in our community by welcoming the stranger in the spirit of the
Gospel. We recognize the inalienable right of all persons to human dignity. We
therefore assist and advocate for immigrants to attain family unity, economic
independence and social integration.

Supported by a U.S. Department of
Justice grant supporting a federal law to protect victims of human trafficking
and violence, the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) specialist assists
immigrants in safely leaving dangerous situations and obtaining immigration
status that supports them in making decisions for their own future. The Crime
Victims Services Coordinator also works with law enforcement agencies and
parish/community teams to educate them about immigrant victims' rights when
they are victims of a violent crime and to provide access to critical resources
for victims when they are in crisis.

Services

§Application Assistance: Immigration Services prepares and files
immigration applications and forms to the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration
Services.

§Counseling and Referrals: Counsels clients about
immigration-related needs and refers clients to attorneys for legal assistance
and deportation proceedings.

§Advocacy: Interacts with congressional representatives on behalf
of immigrants.

§Education: Immigration Services conducts immigration workshops
and seminars at various events in the community.

VAWA Specialists

§VAWA is a
program within Catholic Immigration Services that helps get lawful permanent
resident status for victims of domestic violence who are married to U.S.
citizens or other lawful permanent residents. Federal law protects victims of
trafficking and violence. The work of our VAWA specialists is funded by a U.S.
Department of Justice grant.

VAWA Services

§Security against deportation: VAWA assists victims of certain
crimes, like domestic violence, obtain Delayed Action and Employment
Authorization when the victim is willing to help prosecute the criminal
perpetrator.

§Immigration Assistance: Helps victims of human trafficking,
where people are forced or coerced into servitude. In these cases, the VAWA
program works with the local office of the FBI.

Doug
Thompson, “Group Seeks to Bring 100 Refugees to Region Yearly.” NADG (5-22-16). Local
group called “Canopy” seeks to bring “’one or two families a month.’” Canopy is composed of local representatives
of Catholic Charities Immigration Services, Lutheran Immigration and Refugee
Service, and the participation of other groups is planned. Frank Head directs local Catholic Services;
Rev. Clint Schnekloth is lead pastor of Good Shepard Lutheran. This is a good article about a developing,
complex effort, seeking out several perspectives. [The statistics were confusing. The UN has declared 65 million “displaced”
people, but Thompson refers to 14.5 million “refugees.” It’s a crucial matter because it helps to
determine how adequately US and Arkansas have responded. The problem may be the definition of
“refugees accounted for by the United Nations.” It’s a narrow definition relating to
persecution, when many more people are fleeing the violence of war. See the following item in which the
definition is more inclusive.] —Dick

UUFF, Compassion Fayetteville, OMNI, and the Quaker
Meeting joined together to be a co-sponsor for Canopy when it was
being formed, and now it is up and running and needs our attention.

We need to advertise to our people and put together a team
of 8 for the upcoming trainings... either the October training, or January, so
they are ready to welcome and support a new family to the area.

The reason we are a coalition is the difficulty of our
smaller groups to pull together eight volunteers for such an endeavor from
one... so it makes sense to collaborate. It will be interesting to see the
overlap of our people as well;-)

I'm also reaching out to Temple Shalom, and the Muslim
community as well.

Anyhow... Time to contact our constituents and get some
volunteers! Share the Canopy materials with them, and lets get one or
two 8 person teams put together for training. I'll start a central sign up,
when you get names and contact information, share them with me/all, or put them
directly into the sign up sheet on Google Docs (sent to each of you plus a link
below).

Greetings! We have
been really busy over here the last couple months setting up our
organization and getting ready to begin welcoming refugees to
Northwest Arkansas this fall. But we are pleased to announce
we are finally ready to begin working closely with our
co-sponsoring teams. In case some of you haven’t heard, we found
out last month that we were provisionally approved as a site by the
State Department. This was a
big and exciting step forward for us, a confirmation that we are headed
in the right direction. As of today, there is still not anything in
writing, so we are refraining for publicly celebrating just yet, but
the day is coming soon!

That being said, we are going forward on the assumption that everything
will be finalized very soon and that refugees really will be
arriving in Fayetteville in late November… Which means it’s time to get
to work!

You are receiving this email because you are part of a
team that has signed on to co-sponsor a refugee family. This is a
wonderful commitment: you will be our community's ambassadors of
welcome. It is also a big commitment: there is a lot that goes into
helping a refugee build a new life. As such, the
first step of this process for you is to attend a Co-Sponsor Training
session.

We will hold our first training session October 22 from 9am
to 2:30 pm at the Good Shepherd Lutheran Church, 2925 Old Missouri
Rd, Fayetteville.

We will hold
co-sponsor trainings once a quarter and we will be requiring all core
co-sponsoring team members (minimum of 8 people) to complete the
training before we can assign you a family. If some or all of
your team are unable to make this training, let us know. We may be able
to set up a few make-up sessions, since this is our first go-around, or
you might be able to attend our January training instead. We
will likely only resettle 3-4 families at the most in this first
quarter, anyway, so not all teams need to attend this first session.

Between now and then,
we have some homework for you to do:

-Meet
all together as a team, if you have not done so already, and
designate a team leader. This point person will be our main line of
communication with your team.

-Begin discussing
how your group wants to divide up the following required
activities: furnishing the apartment, buying groceries, driving refugees to
appointments, practicing English with the refugees, conducting
cultural orientation and hosting the refugees for meals/events. We
will go over all these in detail at the training, but for now, it would
be helpful for you to start discussing internally how you will divide
these tasks up.

-Have
your team leader RSVP to Emily.linn@canopynwa.orgabout the training by October 1.
Please let us know the names of all those who will be attending and the
name of your co-sponsoring organization. Canopy will
provide lunch and refreshments as part of the training, so we need
to know accurate numbers.

-Begin
fundraising. We put in place a requirement (after we recruited all
of you) that all co-sponsoring teams commit to fundraising $1,100 for Canopy to
assist with the resettlement costs. Because this was not in
place when y’all committed, it’s not required of you. However,
it would certainly be helpful to us if you would be able to help us
with fundraising. This will give you something tangible to work on as a
team even now before refugees begin arriving.

And there you have
it! We made up for our long silence by suddenly inundating you with
information all at once. Thank you for joining with us in
welcoming and empowering our world's most vulnerable.

The consequence of Obama's and Congress's multilayered
fecklessness (one of many descriptors needed) is their outrageous failure to
embrace the refugees, which raises the work of private rescue to a high value
and urgency. Our national leaders should
say we can do as well as Canada and aspire as high as Germany, instead of that
paltry 10,000 as yet not 3000.

That’s “a nearly 30 percent increase from the 85,000 allowed in
over the previous year,” but “still far short” of what is needed advocacy
groups say. “Of the 110,000, 40,000 will
come from the Middle East and South Asia.”

FROM
SPAIN 1614 TO USA 2016

REJECTION,
DISCRIMINATION, PERSECUTION, DEPORTATION by Dick Bennett

During times of crisis, doubt, and fear,
people and governments turn to fundamentalist intolerance and the persecution
of minority groups. We see this
cause-effect throughout history. The
defeat of the Spanish Armada led to a new Spanish fundamentalism preaching
purity and fighting heresy. The Spanish
Christian rulers proscribed Islam, but of the Muslims who remained living in Spain,
called Moriscos, many continued to practice Islam secretly. And they were
increasing in number, giving rise to the fear they might some day become the
majority. This perceived threat of
growing diversity was used by the rulers to expel all Muslims from 1609 to 1614
in a heinous exodus of suffering and death.

The US today looks humane compared to
this Spanish example or to the expulsion of the Cherokees in the nineteenth
century Trail of Tears, yet similar fears and persecutions persist with similar
if not such bloody consequences. Just as the Spaniards had made Islam illegal,
now we have designated people seeking a better life illegal immigrants. Part of the anxiety derives from ancient
xenophobia, a fear of a counter-identity.
Some people fear loss of their jobs by immigrant competition. Apparently the fear has increased, as
reflected by the persecution, for in
its first four years, Mr. Obama's administration deported as many illegal immigrants as
the administration of George W. Bush did
in his two terms. Compare these statistics: “Amount the Obama Administration spent on
immigration enforcement during 2013:
$18,000,000,000. Amount the
Justice Department spent on all law enforcement: $12,400,000,000.” “Harper’s Index,” Harper’s
Magazine (April 2013). H

Some compassionate, tolerant Spanish
nobles opposed the discrimination, the arbitrariness, the proscription, and the
deportations. One Pedro de Valencia
writing in 1606 called for gradual integration through dispersion, mixed
marriages, and better living conditions.
A few recognized that appropriate incentives would eventually lead the
Moriscos to become loyal subjects.
Instead, the majority with the King chose hideous intolerance and
cruelty.

Similarly today, reasonable citizens
recommend a generous enlargement of immigrant quotas. Not of all who seek a better life, not as
Emma Lazarus wrote in her sonnet, “The New Collosus,” inscribed on the pedestal
of the Statue of Liberty, "Give
me your tired, your poor,/Your huddled masses.” But
in that spirit we certainly can and should accept significantly more. Many
other countries absorb immigrants at a higher rate than the U.S. does once you factor in the
size of each nation’s population. Using
the measurement of permanent, annual immigrant inflows per overall population, the U.S.
in 2009 ranked only 11th out of a selection of 28 advanced industrialized
nations, trailing such countries as Australia,
Austria, Switzerland, New
Zealand, Norway
and Ireland. And using United Nations data on the
cumulative number of resident immigrants as a share of total population, the U.S.
ranks only 25th in the world.

And if
Christian US deportation of Christian illegal workers is less brutal than that
of the seventeenth-century Spaniards’ expulsion of illegal Muslims, the US
deports many more than did ruling Spain.
As Professor Daniel Kanstroom has recounted in his book, Aftermath, since 1996, when new, harsher
deportation laws went into effect under the Clinton
administration, the US
has deported millions of noncitizens back to their countries of origin, yet
hardly any attention has been paid to what actually happens to deportees. In fact, we have fostered a new diaspora of
deportees, many of whom are alone and isolated, with strong ties to their
former communities in the United
States.
The uprooting of settled illegal immigrants especially with families,
the separation of spouses and children, have caused immeasurable grief. Kanstroom
(also author of the definitive history of US
deportation, Deportation Nation) criticizesthe current deportation system of the United States and especially deportation's
aftermath: the actual effects on individuals, families, U.S. communities, and the countries that must
process and repatriate ever-increasing numbers of U.S. deportees. Few know, he
writes, that once deportees have been
expelled to places like Guatemala, Cambodia, Haiti, and El Salvador, many face
severe hardship, persecution and, in extreme instances, even death.
In his letter to the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette (Feb. 20,
2013), Stephen Clark appeals to US clergy to speak out in support of “the
worldwide persecution of Christians.” He
offers no evidence (but the newspaper restricts contributors to 250 words, or
one page), but I join him in deploring any persecution, which has plagued some
religions for hundreds of years, including Christianity

Mr.
Clark also states that “the persecution is especially severe in North Korea, Saudi
Arabia, Iraq,
Pakistan, Egypt, and Afghanistan.” If so, I denounce them for it as I do US
Christian bigotry against other faiths, as in the expulsion of millions of
undocumented people since 1996, mainly Hispanics but also Muslims and others. Note the sub-title of Anouar Majid’s
book: We Are All Moors: Ending
Centuries of Crusades Against Muslims and Other Minorities. After the death of Jesus, his followers were
nonviolent. But by 420 Christianity was
beginning to persecute heresies. By 436,
Christianity had been so transformed that only Christians could serve in the
Roman legions, and nonviolence was a heresy to be persecuted. Then Islam arose and moved westward, until
the Battle of Potiers in 732, when the Christian re-conquest began and the
Crusades, and today Mr. Clark perceives Christians as the victims and calls
upon Christian pastors to take action.

Had he ended there, no great
intensification of the ancient hatred and bloodshed of the re-conquest would
have been suggested. But he ends his
letter with a quotation from pastor
Dietrich Bonhoeffer warning Germans during WWII that “Silence in the face of
evil is itself evil. God will not hold
us guiltless.” By that quotation,
possibly unintentionally he insinuates that not only are five Islamic countries
and one communist country guilty of “severe” persecution of Christians (no
details given), but that they are “evil” comparable to Hitler. Two of the countries are among the “Axis of Evil,”
President Bush’s war cry: you are either with us or against us.

Such association and call for action
can lead only to continued distrust and conflict. The last century witnessed endless fear,
bitterness, and folly, resulting in the deaths and impoverishment of millions
and grievous damage to the environment.
Now in the twenty-first century, let us reject hatred and aggression,
discrimination and persecution.

REFERENCES

Kanstroom,
Daniel . Aftermath: Deportation Law and the New American
Diaspora 2012. Deportation
Nation: Outsiders in American History. 2012.

Majid,
Anouar. We Are All Moors: Ending Centuries of Crusades Against Muslims and
Other Minorities. 2009.

Since 1996, when new, harsher deportation laws went into effect,
the United States
has deported millions of noncitizens back to their countries of origin. While
the rights of immigrants-with or without legal status--as well as the
appropriate pathway to legal status are the subject of much debate, hardly any
attention has been paid to what actually happens to deportees once they
"pass beyond our aid." In fact, we have fostered a new diaspora of
deportees, many of whom are alone and isolated, with strong ties to their
former communities in the United
States.

Daniel Kanstroom, author of the authoritative history of deportation,
Deportation Nation, turns his attention here to the current deportation system
of the United States and especially deportation's aftermath: the actual effects
on individuals, families, U.S. communities, and the countries that must process
and repatriate ever-increasing numbers of U.S. deportees. Few know that once
deportees have been expelled to places like Guatemala,
Cambodia, Haiti, and El Salvador, many face severe
hardship, persecution and, in extreme instances, even death.

Addressing a wide range of political, social, and legal issues, Kanstroom
considers whether our deportation system "works" in any meaningful
sense. He also asks a number of under-examined legal and philosophical
questions: What is the relationship between the "rule of law" and the
border? Where do rights begin and end? Do (or should) deportees ever have a
"right to return"? After demonstrating that deportation in the U.S.
remains an anachronistic, ad hoc, legally questionable affair, the book
concludes with specific reform proposals for a more humane and rational
deportation system.

Features

Shines a light on the many injustices and inadequacies of America's
current immigration control system

Features stories of immigrants caught in the immigration control
system's web and shows what happens to them after they are deported

A broad ranging overview of how the system emerged and how it
works that closes with powerful legal and ethical argument for reforming it

Reviews

"In
Aftermath, Dan Kanstroom accomplishes the impossible: he disassembles the
labyrinthine snarl of our immigration system in a volume that is both readable
and scholarly, accessible and authoritative. Arguing compellingly against
"government behavior and consequences we cannot and should not
accept," he outlines a sensible, sane way forward. This book is ultimately
a volume of hope that appeals to the American spirit of fair play and
resoundingly demonstrates that fairness can be, and is, pragmatic and enlightened
self-interest. A must-read."--Ashley Judd, actor and human rights activist

"Daniel
Kanstroom has written another remarkable book about the U.S.
deportation system. Reading Aftermath is a must for anyone seriously interested
in understanding the underbelly of contemporary US border control policy and the
urgency of immigration reform."--Jacqueline Bhabha, Director of Research, François-XavierBagnoudCenter for Health and Human Rights, HarvardUniversity

"In
this cogent, well-written and, at times, poignant work of scholarship, Daniel
Kanstroom looks unflinchingly at the understudied issue of deportation's
aftermath. No one interested in immigration policy will be unmoved by his deft
unveiling of the injustices that routinely accompany the US's use of
large-scale deportation. More than simply showing its problems, this work
provides a convincing account of how the deportation system can be reformed to
make it less of an affront to basic principles of morality and legal
fairness."--Matthew J. Gibney, University
of Oxford

"Dan
Kanstroom is among the most daring and inventive migration scholars writing
today. Many studies of immigration law and policy start with the foreign
national's arrival in the United
States and end with her forced departure.
But for nearly all individuals and families, life does not end with removal.
Aftermath carries the story forward, rounding out the picture to include
previously-overlooked narratives of life for those removed, those left behind,
and the enduring efforts of millions of households to preserve the ties that
bind. It is a fair-minded and accessible book that lays bare the gross failings
of our current deportation machinery, but also, in illuminating experience in
what Kanstroom terms "the new American diaspora," points to a way out
of the terrible box we are now in."--Michael J. Wishnie, William O.
Douglas Clinical Professor of Law, YaleLawSchool

Daniel Kanstroom is Professor of Law at Boston
College and author ofDeportation Nation: Outsiders.

NEWS REPORTING
IMMIGRANTS/IMMIGRATION

“What Makes a Critical Press? A Case Study of French and U.S.
Immigration News Coverage,” International
Journal of Pres/Politics (January 2010).
Rev. Columbia JR (May/June
2010).

Conflicts
around the world have displaced 65 million people, many of whom are living in
poverty, said a report by the United Nations refugee agency and the World Bank.
"Extreme poverty is now increasingly concentrated among vulnerable groups,
including people who had to flee in the face of conflict and violence, and their
presence affects development prospects in the communities that are hosting
them," the report contends.

We Are All Moors: Ending
Centuries of Crusades against Muslims and Other Minorities by Anouar
Majid. 2012.

An alternate history of xenophobia and how we must overcome it together

In We
Are All Moors, Anouar Majid contends that the acrimonious debates about
immigration and Islam in the West are the cultural legacy of the conflict
between Christians and Moors. Offering a groundbreaking new history, Majid explores
how “the Moor” has served as an unacknowledged but potent metaphor for all
minority peoples in the West, endlessly reincarnated by the majority.

We Are All Moors excited me for its implications. The range is superb and
reading it is a pleasure—Anouar Majid dances across continents, taking a thread
and seeing what comes of it. It reminds us of histories long forgotten, and
provides a useful way to look back to help understand the present. Vijay Prashad, author of The Darker
Nations: A People’s History of the Third World

What Sponsors
Should Know Before Signing Form I-864 Affidavit of Support

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If you are
sponsoring someone for a family based green card (U.S. lawful permanent
residence) you will, as a condition of the person being approved, need to fill
out an Affidavit of Support for that person. This is done on Form I-864,
published by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS).

Let's take a
look at the legal implications of the Form I-864 Affidavit of Support. You
should also attempt to read all the instructions that come with the form.

If you are
lucky, you might not have to fill out the long version of the form. Some
sponsors get to use a considerably simpler Form I-864EZ rather than the Form
I-864. If you are sponsoring only one immigrant, and your income alone is
enough to satisfy the required Poverty Guidelines levels, be sure to use this
easier form! (For information on how much income you will need to show, see
"How Much Income an Immigrant's Sponsor Needs to Show According to the
Poverty Guidelines.")

The Sponsor’s
Obligations

The Form I-864
Affidavit of Support is a legally enforceable contract, meaning that either the
government or the sponsored immigrant can take the sponsor to court if the
sponsor fails to provide adequate support.

When the
government sues the sponsor, it collects enough money to reimburse any public
agencies that have given public benefits to the immigrant. When the immigrant
sues, he or she collects cash support up to 125% of the amount listed in the
U.S. government’s Poverty Guidelines (as shown in the chart in Form I-864P).

The sponsor’s
responsibility lasts until the immigrant becomes a U.S. citizen, has earned 40
work quarters credited toward Social Security (a work quarter is about three
months, so this means about ten years of work), dies, or permanently leaves the
United States. If the immigrant has already been living in the U.S. and earned
work credits before applying for the green card, those count toward the 40.

In fact, in
marriage-based cases, work done by the U.S. petitioning spouse during the
marriage can be counted toward these 40 quarters.

CAUTION

A sponsor in a
marriage-based case remains legally obligated even after a divorce. Yes, a
divorced immigrant spouse could decide to sit on a couch all day and sue the
former spouse for support. The sponsor may wish to have the immigrant sign a
separate contract agreeing not to do this, but it is not clear whether courts
would enforce such a contract.

Who Can Serve
as an Immigrant's Financial Sponsor

The person
petitioning the immigrant and any additional financial sponsor(s) must meet
three requirements to serve in this role. Each sponsor must be:

• a U.S.
citizen, national, or permanent resident

• at least 18
years of age, and

• live in the
United States or a U.S. territory or possession.

As a practical
matter, of course, the sponsor will have to doing pretty well financially to
get the immigrant approved for a green card. Even if the sponsor’s income and
assets are lower than the Poverty Guidelines demand, however, he or she must
sign an Affidavit of Support. But in a case of low income, the sponsor will have
to look for additional sponsors to help the foreign-born person immigrate.

Take particular
note of the third requirement if both the sponsor and the would-be immigrant
are presently living overseas. The consulate may require that the sponsor show
that this is a temporary absence, that the sponsor has maintained ties to the
U.S., and that he or she intends to reestablish domicile there no later than
the date that the immigrant is admitted as a permanent resident. Some of the
ways the sponsor can show having maintained ties to the U.S. include having
paid state or local taxes, kept U.S. bank accounts, kept a permanent U.S.
mailing address, or voted in U.S. elections.

CAUTION

Sponsors who
try to run away from their obligations will face fines. The U.S. government has
anticipated that some sponsors might try to escape their financial obligation
by simply moving and leaving no forwarding address. That’s why the law says
that the sponsor must report a new address to USCIS on Form I-865 within 30
days of moving. A sponsor who does not comply faces fines of between $250 and
$2,000; or $5,000 if the sponsor knows the immigrant has collected need-based
public benefits.

Political asylum is granted by the U.S. government to people who can prove that
they are afraid to return to their home country because they have a
"well-founded fear of persecution." People may also be granted
political asylum if they left their home country because they were persecuted
in the past. If you win political asylum, you can apply for your "green
card" (permanent residence). To win asylum because you are afraid of
returning to your home country, you must appear at an initial hearing before a
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) asylum officer, usually at a
USCIS district office. If you application for asylum is denied, you may
appeal to an immigration judge, and will have another opportunity to prove that
your fear is "well-founded."
You must convince
the asylum officer or immigration judge that you truly believe you are in
danger, that you have good reasons for this belief, and that someone else in
your position would also be afraid. You must generally present
independent, verifiable documentary evidence that shows you fear persecution in
your home country or that you have been persecuted in the past.
Persecution can mean that you have been, or may be, hurt, kidnapped, detained,
jailed, tortured, threatened, killed, or beaten, or that your freedom was or
will be taken away in any other way.
The people who
persecuted you or whom you're afraid will persecute you if you return to your
home country can be the government (army, police, soldiers, elected officials,
death squads, or others), the guerrillas, another opposition group, the civil
patrol, or any other group that the government cannot or will not
control. The people who persecuted you or whom you think will persecute
you if you return to your home country must be persecuting you based on one of
the following five reasons:
1. The most common
reason for being persecuted is because of your political opinion. It doesn't
matter whether you support or oppose the government. People who have been
persecuted because of their political opinions and have won their asylum cases
have included: people who demonstrate as students, are active in labor unions,
or are members of political parties or the government. Sometimes, even if you
don't have a political opinion, the persecutor may think you have a certain
political opinion. He may persecute you because he thinks you have a political
opinion due to things you do, groups you belong to, or your family's
background.
2. Another common
reason for being persecuted is your religion, no matter what religion it
is. If you're not allowed to practice your religion or you are persecuted
because of your religious beliefs, you may be able to qualify for asylum.
Many times people who are religious workers, catechists, or members of Christian
Base communities qualify for asylum.
3. Often people are
persecuted because they belong to a particular social group. This means people
who share certain characteristics such as: age, place where they live, family,
ethnic group, race, nationality, gender or community.
4. Sometimes people
are persecuted because of their race. This means that if you have been or may
be persecuted because of your skin color, origin or background you may qualify
for asylum.
5. Some people are
persecuted because of their nationality. Nationality is similar to race. It can
mean your country of citizenship, country of origin or your ethnic group.
6. Recently,
the immigration and federal courts have also created a new ground for
persecution based on sex and the treatment of women in foreign countries, and
this ground may include the practice of female genital mutilation in the asylum
applicant's home country.
If the persons who
are persecuting you are doing so for personal reasons only, you will not win
your case. Yet, if you have a well-founded belief that the persons
who are persecuting you are doing so for a number of reasons, one of which is
personal, then you may be able to obtain political asylum in the United
States. For example, if a soldier who is off-duty threatened to kill you
because he thought you had stolen money from him, that would not qualify as a
well-founded fear of persecution for purposes of political asylum because the
threat relates to something personal, strictly between the two of you.
But if this same soldier then told his commander that you were a guerrilla or
an anti-government activist, then you could argue the danger would no longer be
just personal; it would also be political.
The closer the
persecution came to you, the stronger your case will be. For example, you
would have a better case if you yourself were threatened or captured than if a
fellow-student or someone else in your town or family were threatened or
captured. However, if you can prove that what happened to the other
person shows that you are also in danger, you still may have a strong
case. Your testimony, if the immigration judge (or INS asylum officer)
believes it, can be enough to prove your case. You do not need
documents. Even though you do not need them, documents and independently
verifiable information are always helpful to show that at least parts of your
story are true. For example, it can be helpful to show student or union
identification cards, letters from a church or other religious group with whom
you've worked, newspaper articles about you, your family or town, as well as
general articles showing the problems in your home country, such as reports
from the U.S. Department of State or Amnesty International.
Anyone who applies
for political asylum and has persecuted someone else because of that person's
political opinion, her membership in a social group, her religion, her race or
her nationality may not be granted political asylum, no matter how strong the
case may be. For example, if a member of the army or a guerrilla group
participated in the kidnapping, torture or murder of someone else whom he
suspected of opposing his group politically, this could mean he was persecuting
another because of political beliefs and he will probably lose his political
asylum case. Yet, if you were a guerrilla or soldier and hurt or killed
another guerrilla or soldier while you were fighting in a war, then you
probably would not be considered to have persecuted another and you may still
be able to qualify for asylum.
Besides persecuting
others, you can also be denied political asylum if you were convicted of
certain bad crimes or for other reasons. You should always check with a lawyer
or law office to see if you may be able to qualify for asylum.
To prove your
political asylum case, you will likely have to have to have a hearing in front
of an immigration judge. The purpose of the hearing is to tell the immigration
judge your story of why you fear returning to your home country. The
immigration judge will decide if you qualify for political asylum. He
will decide in your favor if he feels you fear being persecuted in your home
country and if he feels that your fear is real (this means that someone else in
your position could have the same fear and you are not just making it
up). Your immigration lawyer, an interpreter (if you need one), the
lawyer representing USCIS, and the immigration judge will all be at the
hearing. Each person has a different role at the hearing.

Your
immigration lawyer

Your immigration lawyer is on your side. It is his job is to help you explain
to the judge why you fear returning to your home country. You and he will
already have prepared an application and a declaration for the immigration
judge to read, but the immigration judge wants to hear your story live and in
person. The way you have to tell the immigration judge why you are afraid to
return to your home country in the court is different from the way most stories
are told. In the court, the way stories are told is through what is called the
direct exam. The direct exam is when the your immigration lawyer asks you
questions and you'll answer them for the immigration judge. Your answers will
include everything that happened causing you to leave your home country and why
you can't return. Most of the information your lawyer will be asking you will
be based on the information provided in your Form I-589 application for asylum
and what you have told your immigration lawyer in previous interviews.

Immigration
and Naturalization Service (INS) lawyer

The USCIS lawyer (called the "district counsel" or the "Service
attorney") will do what is called the "cross-examination".
The cross-examination is when the USCIS lawyer asks you questions right after
your lawyer finishes asking you questions, and you have to answer these
questions, too. The USCIS lawyer will try to show you don't qualify for asylum.
He will do this by trying to confuse you, to show you are lying or being
inconsistent, or that you really came to the United States to make some money,
escape military service, or for some other reason, instead of because you
feared being persecuted. You and your lawyer will practice the
cross-examination so you are used to it before the hearing. After the USCIS
lawyer asks his questions, your lawyer will have another chance to ask more
questions and then the USCIS lawyer gets another chance, too. So each side
(yours and USCIS) gets two chances to ask questions.

The
interpreter

The interpreter, if needed, will interpret the questions that your lawyer, the
USCIS lawyer and the immigration judge ask you into your language and will
interpret your answers into English. Some interpreters are better than
others. You should learn how to best use a interpreter. It is best to
practice with an interpreter before the hearing. If you speak in short, very
clear sentences, it will help because it is hard for the interpreter to
accurately interpret more than a couple of sentences at a time.

The
immigration judge

The immigration judge will decide the case if a USCIS asylum officer has denied
your application for political asylum. He will want to satisfy himself
that you are telling the truth. Immigration judges feel that they can
determine this. Thus, it is important for you to look him in the eyes
once in a while, act natural, believable, and confident, and not to look down
at the floor. The immigration judge will also be looking for
inconsistencies in your story based on what you say during the hearing and also
what the application and declaration include. Sometimes the immigration
judge may interrupt the questioning by the others, and ask his own
questions. He may also ask questions at the end of the hearing. If
the immigration judge grants you asylum, one year later you can apply for your
"green card."
If your asylum case
is denied, you will not necessarily be deported immediately. The
immigration judge may give you some time to leave or you can appeal the case,
which often takes one to four years. During the appeal process, you will
be allowed to remain in the United States with USCIS employment authorization
(a "work permit"). But you cannot leave the United
States. If you do, you will automatically lose your case.

You must apply
within one year of arriving in the United States

Current federal law requires an asylum applicant in the United States to apply
for asylum no less than one year after entering the United States.
However, USCIS policy with regard to waivers of the one-year requirement is
liberal, and there are many reasons for not applying within this one-year
period.

What about the
children?

With the resolution of the Elian Gonzalez case in June, 2000, there has been
much discussion of the word "capacity" as it is applied to minor
children who may have a colorable claim to political asylum in the United
States. In an excellent article published in the ABA Journal for
August, 2000, writer Siobhan Morrissey researched the issue.
" 'More than a
dozen attorneys represented Elian's Miami family,' Bernard Perlmutter, director
of the University of Miami's Children and Youth Clinic, was quoted as saying,
'but most refugee minors are not so lucky.' Last year, 5,000
unaccompanied children sought asylum in the United States, he said, explaining
that there were 'many instances where they had no access to interpreters or
[legal] counsel.
"Some of these
children fled the horrors of their homelands: bonded labor, femal
genital mutilation, child prostitution and conscription into the military as
child soldiers. Last year, 1,200 children voluntarily agreed to
deportation from the United States, largely because many of them did not
understand their legal options, Perlmutter says.
" 'They may
well be children who have bona fide claims to asylum,' he says.
"The United
Nations High Commission on Refugees estimates children compose more than half
the world's refugee population -- roughly 20 million minors. Those who
make it to the United States often don't comprehend the legal process and have
difficulty being heard, says Wendy Young, director of government relations with
the Women's Commission for Refugee Women and Children, a New York City-based
nonprofit organization.
" 'An asylum
seeker who is represented by an attorney is three times as likely to win asylum
as one without,' Young says. 'When you add to that mix a child's
capacity, it is virtually impossible to win asylum.'
"Not all
children merit asylum, Young concedes. However, all minors should be
appointed an attorney to shepherd their cases, as is already done in Britain,
she adds."

Refugees

Refugees are in a separate category from political asylum applicants.
They are admitted to the United States under executive orders that mirror U.S.
participation with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees
worldwide. Refugees are admitted for permanent residence, or temporarily
until situations in their home countries are resolved and they are able to
return home.
Many refugees worry
that taking advantage of federal public benefits, such as food stamps, and Aid
to Families With Dependent Children, will bar them from receiving immigration
benefits or U.S. citizenship. Fact sheets on the availability of federal
public benefits for refugees are available on our web site by clicking on the
following link: Benefits
If you think you may
be eligible for political asylum, or you know someone who may be eligible, get
good legal guidance. If you cannot afford legal help, contact the
Immigration Law Center, at (334) 832-9090. Foreign-language Interpreters
are available from 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. Central Time, Monday through
Friday. They will provide you with information about political asylum and
how you can file with USCIS for political asylum on your own, without an
attorney. The Immigration Law Center uses the language translation and
interpretation services of the Linguist Databank. If you can afford to
hire a lawyer to help you with a political asylum application, and you need the
help of an interpreter fluent in a language other than English, you are invited
to call our law offices, after hours, at (334) 832-9090. Leave your
message in your native language and ask us to find an interpreter for
you. If you leave your name and telephone number, we will get in touch
with you to arrange an interview.
If you cannot afford
a lawyer, request free or needs-based legal aid through the International
Assistance Project of Alabama (IAPA), which provides legal services in meritorious
cases. You can read more about IAPA by clicking on the following
link: CLICK HERE. If
you live outside the southeastern United States and would like to hire a lawyer
closer to you, call the American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA) at
(202) 216-2400 and ask for the Lawyer Referral Service. Winning your
political asylum case will not be easy. A high percentage of cases are
routinely denied. You are three times as likely to lose your case without
the help of an attorney who is knowledgeable about U.S. immigration and
nationality law and political asylum. If you dedicate yourself to the
task and work hard, it may take years to achieve your goal, but you can be
successful.

WARNING: Your friends, relatives, and fellow
employees are good sources of bad advice concerning immigration and nationality
law. It does not cost much to present you situation to a qualified
immigration lawyer to find out what you should do or get a legal opinion on whether
you are eligible for political asylum. Such advice and guidance is
usually worth much more than you pay for it. You can get professional
help from a member of the American Immigration
Lawyers Association (AILA) by calling (202) 216-2400 in Washington, D.C.,
and asking for the Lawyer Referral Service.

Boyd F. Campbell is a member
of the American Bar Association (ABA) and the American
Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA). He is former Chair of the
Immigration Law Committee of the ABA's General Practice, Solo & Small Firm
Lawyers Section. He is also a former Co-Chair of the Immigration Law
Committee of the ABA's Section of Labor and Employment Law and was a member of
the ABA's Coordinating Committee on Immigration Law from 1994 to 1998. He
also serves as Chair of the International
Law Section of the Alabama State Bar.
Mr. Campbell is Alabama's first practicing civil law notary, having been
appointed to this official position by Alabama's Secretary of State in August,
2001. He is also Chairman of the Board and Legal Director of the International Assistance Project of
Alabama, a nonprofit organization whose mission is to encourage economic
development and family orientation among Alabama's new international residents
and long-term visitors. Please consider volunteering with IAPA, and read
more about IAPA by visiting its home page.